Macbeth’s predilection for decisive physical action as evidenced by the admiring reports of the returning Captain in Act One Scene Three is systematically undermined by the contaminating effects of the witches’ promises. Macbeth retreats into guilty rumination, plotting against his King, his best friend and even the defenceless family of Macduff. It feels as if the ‘fog and filthy air’ of the witches have deprived Macbeth of any facility for clarity. He cannot ‘see’ beyond his lust for power as the ‘fog’ has deprived him of any literal and metaphorical moral horizon.And when the audience first encounters the witches and senses their ‘foul’ muddying of discrimination, we recognise This obfuscation is continued in other furtive and claustrophobic spaces like Macbeth’s castle where all moral horizons are jeopardised and lost through the terrible, stifling intimacy that exists between Lady Macbeth and her husband.
Think of the dramatic irony of King Duncan’s praise of the castle with its ‘pleasant seat’: here the King’s misjudgement repeats his mistake with Cawdor and shows his lack of clarity: rendering him a vulnerable King. Little wonder surely that his kingdom has been invaded by Norway and threatened by the betrayal of Cawdor and Macdonwald.
